Official Decision Needed On Homeopathy Services
January 30th 2008
NHS-funded homeopathic services are on the decline in the UK, it was reported today. They have been hit hard by the government’s plans to increase the cost-effectiveness of NHS resources and many trusts are cutting their funding.
Only 37 per cent of 132 primary care trusts now have contracts for homeopathic services, an investigation by the journal Pulse found.
Homeopathy remains popular in general practice, being the second most used complementary treatment after acupuncture in a survey last year.
Nevertheless, the controversial treatment has been stopped or reduced in more than a quarter of trusts in the past two years.
Homeopathy suffered a blow in May 2006 when a group of experts told directors of commissioning that the treatment caused "cultural and social damage" and was "unsupported by evidence".
But there is also a danger that patients denied homeopathic treatments on the NHS might take risks by consulting non-medical homeopathic practitioners, warns Dr Tim Robinson, a GP who provides a local homeopathic service in Dorset.
He said: "They will have to pay someone and go to a non-doctor and there are potential risks with that."
The deputy editor of Pulse, Richard Hoey, commented: "Homeopathy is a highly controversial treatment with all sorts of doubts over its evidence base, but it is popular with patients and has traditionally always had a place in general practice.
"If the NHS is now going to stop providing homeopathy, that needs to be a decision taken in the full glare of public debate, and not made in the committee rooms of cash-strapped trusts."
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